by Mark Frost
“Okay, but how is what he’s describing even possible? Are you saying the forest has changed position? I didn’t see you spraying leaves on our way in with your little graffiti tag can. How can you be so sure?”
“I don’t know how I know,” said Ajay, pressing both hands to his forehead. “I just know.”
Will joined them. “What are you arguing about?”
“Ajay thinks the path has changed,” said Elise, standing between them, trying to mediate. “That it’s taking us in a different direction now—”
“The path has changed,” said Ajay. “It’s taking us much farther to the left.”
“Nick, you’re always bragging about your ‘most excellent’ sense of direction,” said Will. “Why don’t you stop and think about it?”
Nick nodded reluctantly, turned around, looked out in every direction carefully, and then furrowed his brow. “Okay. Okay, this is freaky. He’s right. This isn’t the way we came in. I don’t even know how I know that either.”
Before Ajay could gloat, Elise held up a hand right in front of his face to keep him quiet.
“It doesn’t matter how,” said Will, pointing ahead. “So we keep going this way, then. Follow the path.”
They walked on for another quarter of a mile, at which point they left behind the last damp traces of the swamp and passed through an area of transitional wetlands, where the trees stopped completely. The wetlands ended abruptly as they climbed a well-trodden path up a long, gentle rise covered with native grasses.
Reaching the crest of the hill, they stopped and looked out over the most pleasing and expansive vista they’d yet encountered, a long, wide savannah with softly rolling grasslands, extending out in every direction as far as the eye could see. Although the twilight sky provided no more illumination here than anywhere else, the uniformly golden color of the grasses reflected more of it back, lending an enchanting glow to the landscape and, stirred by a gentle breeze, giving it much more shape and dimension.
“Wow,” said Elise. “This looks like…”
“Africa,” said Will, finishing the thought.
“Or, at least, what you think Africa looks like,” she said.
“Everyone stay low,” said Jericho. “We don’t know who might be able to see us here.”
They crouched down, but Ajay kept his head just above the level of the grass, peering outward. He pointed out light shining on water in the distance and identified it as a fairly large lake fed by a small river. Animals appeared to be milling around the water, but he couldn’t make out what kind they were.
“By the way, Will, you neglected to mention where the plants told you that Dave might be,” said Ajay.
“Like maybe standing in a field of grass, I hope?” asked Nick.
Will got up on his knees and stared out at the golden fields, searching for something familiar, anything that triggered a feeling that they were headed the right way.
“He’s in a fortress of some kind,” said Will. “Built into the side of a mountain.”
“A fortress,” said Nick. “Cool.”
“I don’t see anything like that out here,” said Elise.
“Those look like mountains to me,” said Ajay, pointing way off in the distance. “Could that be where this fortress is located?”
Ajay pointed beyond the lake, where, only half visible in a misty haze, a stark range of steep mountains spanned the horizon.
“I’m not sure,” said Will. “How far away do you think they are?”
Ajay stared off into the distance again. “At least thirty miles from here. Maybe more.”
“Maybe fifty,” said Jericho.
“I don’t know. I wish I could be more sure,” said Will, looking at them hard.
“Oh, you can be,” said Ajay, taking off and opening his backpack.
“I could maybe run ahead and scout it,” said Will. “Wouldn’t take me very long.”
“Nobody goes anywhere now by themselves,” said Jericho.
“That won’t be necessary,” said Ajay.
From a side pocket he slid out a small, square device built out of hard plastic and lightweight aluminum, about a foot across. At each corner, a small rotor extended out of a round plastic housing. Suspended from the middle of the rig was a compact camera.
“No way,” said Nick, laughing. “You brought a freakin’ drone?”
“Will asked me to prepare for any eventuality,” said Ajay, taking out a pocket-sized tool kit. “So I did.”
“We’ve had zero luck with electronics here,” said Will. “You think it will work?”
“I can’t guarantee it will broadcast live pictures back to us, which is how I originally designed it,” said Ajay, adjusting settings on the camera with a small screwdriver. “But I also built in an analog mode, just in case. And the motor is purely mechanical, no electronics involved.”
“Meaning what?” asked Jericho.
“Meaning I can program it to perform a very specific flight pattern. Throughout which it should be able to take a series of reconnaissance stills as it flies to those mountains—I gave it a terabyte of memory—and if it’s able to find its way back to us, we should be able to view them at our convenience. Provided, of course, that the batteries don’t poop out.” He tapped a small flat section on the frame. “I gave it a solar backup panel, but that obviously won’t offer much help in a place with no sun.”
“You think that thing can make it all the way to those mountains and back?” asked Will.
“All we can do is try, yes?” Ajay finished fine-tuning the controls, gazing out at the distant mountains. “So shall we have a go?”
“By all means,” said Will.
Ajay set the drone down in a small clearing. “Once I turn it on and it gets airborne, it should simply follow the flight plan I’ve programmed.”
“Do we have to wait for it here?” asked Jericho.
“No, I assume that we want to keep moving forward, yes?”
Will glanced over at Jericho, who sent back a “your call” look. Will nodded at Ajay.
“Good. So I’ve programmed it to meet us at a specific spot on the near shore of the lake. In slightly over an hour from now, which is approximately how long it should take us to reach the lake at normal walking speed, which I estimate to be about three-point-eight miles from our current position.”
“Where, specifically?” asked Will.
“Near what appears to be a stand of giant gum, or should I say eucalyptus, trees. Gum trees are what they call them in their native Australia.”
Everyone looked out toward the lake. They could hardly even see there was a lake from here.
“You’ll have to take my word for it,” said Ajay. “There are gum trees.”
He flipped on a row of switches on the back. The small rotors on the drone spun to life and kicked up some fine dust as it immediately rose six feet in the air and hovered there, as if it were staring at them.
“It will reach a cruising altitude of approximately one hundred feet,” he said. “I’ve equipped it with sensors so it can adjust to changes in ground level, which will keep it flying at roughly the same distance above whatever it encounters.”
They all gathered around it to take a closer look.
“You built this camera, too?” Jericho asked, almost as if he was impressed.
“High definition with a powerful long lens, so it should be able to gather a plethora of strong details on the ground for us. And without further ado, switching to autopilot and…Godspeed, drone.”
Ajay reached out and flipped another switch. The drone immediately soared up out of sight, generating no more sound than a sparrow’s wings, and zoomed off toward the lake surprisingly quickly.
“How fast is ‘God speed’ anyway?” asked Nick.
“Let’s move out,” said Will. “Single file. No talking, put away anything shiny that might reflect any light, and keep as quiet as possible. Ajay up front. Coach, would you take the back, please?”
They set off down the other side of the rise, following the path through the rolling hills toward the flats of the veld. The only sounds were the pads of their footsteps and the soft breeze stirring the tall grasses.
“If this is kinda like Africa,” whispered Nick to Elise, “you think we’ll see any lions?”
“If they turned out to be anything like the other critters we’ve run into,” she said, “you’d better hope not.”
“Lions are awesome,” said Nick. “Elephants are awesome, too.”
Elise shushed him.
“But not as awesome as lions,” he whispered.
Will glanced over at Jericho as he walked beside him; he bent down to examine some blades of grass, then rolled a stalk of wheat from the end around in his hand. He tasted it, then spit it out. At one point he knelt to gather up a handful of dirt, sniffing it, feeling it with his fingers before holding it to his nose.
“What are you noticing?” Will asked him.
“Things don’t feel right,” he said.
“In what way?”
“There’s a kind of coarseness to the plants, the seeds, even the dirt, and none of them smell right either. They’re off somehow. Not strong enough.”
“I got the same impression earlier,” said Will. “Like it’s all some kind of fraud.”
Jericho looked at him; he’d found the right word. “Why do you think that is?”
“We’ve all picked up on it. The whole place doesn’t seem exactly real. Fake. Like an amusement park but the rides can kill you. And something’s missing.”
Just ahead of them, Ajay had apparently been listening and turned to add, “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. It feels akin to what programmers might call a ‘sandbox world.’ A kind of virtual reality, a simulacrum, or to use Will’s word from earlier, a ‘hologram.’ ”
“Keep talking,” said Jericho.
“A highly effective and persuasive reproduction of our familiar world at first glance, in every respect, until you examine it down to the granular level. Then it breaks apart; you realize the reproduction only goes so far. It’s, as you say, missing something. I’m not sure what it is, a kind of deeper molecular integrity or authenticity.”
“I know what it’s missing,” said Jericho.
“Wak’an tanka,” said Will.
Jericho nodded. Ajay’s eyes lit up.
“Ah, yes, the Great Spirit. So you’re saying that what it lacks is a spiritual cohesiveness or sense of wholeness.”
“That’s why it feels different from our world,” said Jericho.
“Exactly! As if this had all been manufactured by someone who had intimate knowledge of the process of creation and had seen or experienced it somewhere but wasn’t in possession of the complete or correct formula to re-create it.”
“Someone like the Makers, maybe,” said Will.
“That’s a most intriguing idea…,” said Ajay, trailing off in thought as they continued walking. “Let me give that some more thought.”
When they reached the crest of the next rise, the last high ground before the path descended to the flats, even more of the golden plain ahead of them came into view. Ajay raised his hand to bring them to a stop, and they all sank out of sight into the tall grass as he continued scanning.
“The line of the river extends for miles in that direction, snaking gently back and forth,” he said softly, pointing off to the right. “A wide variety of wildlife is at the water’s edge, as you might expect.”
“Any lions?” asked Nick.
“No, just many more of the same sorts of nightmarish species that we’ve previously encountered since our arrival…although there is a herd of something that looks quite a lot like zebras…except that their stripes are all vertical…Oh, I see why now…”
“Why?” asked Jericho.
“They’re all standing upright…on what appear to be kangaroo legs.”
“Zeb-karoos,” said Nick.
“That’s just wrong,” said Elise.
“Wait,” said Ajay, looking farther off to the right. “There is something else moving out in that direction…on the far side of the river…It’s rather large…Ah, yes, it’s an extremely large cloud of dust and it goes on for quite a while…along a road or a byway of some kind, paved with stone…Something appears to be on that road…that is to say traveling along that road…Oh my, oh, dear…”
Ajay suddenly sank down to a sitting position, facing them, looking frightened.
“What is it?” asked Will.
“Maybe I’m wrong. I hope so. Perhaps you’d better take a look.”
Will retrieved his field glasses from his bag and sat up on one knee. He looked first with the naked eye in the direction that Ajay had indicated until he could vaguely make out a smudge that could be the cloud of dust he’d described. Then he raised the glasses.
It was difficult to see much detail through the roiling dust but as his eyes adjusted, he eventually started to make sense of what appeared to be raising the cloud, and why it extended back so far.
“It’s an army,” he said.
“That’s what I thought,” said Ajay.
“For real?” asked Nick.
Jericho asked for the glasses and rose up to take a look; then he moved the glasses slowly back to the left. “They’re traveling toward those mountains. That road looks like it runs all the way there.”
“What kind of army?” asked Elise.
Ajay, Will, and Jericho answered at the same time: “Monsters.”
WILL’S RULES FOR LIVING #12:
IN THE FACE OF OVERWHELMING ODDS, DO ONE SMART THING AT A TIME.
“What kind of monsters?” asked Nick.
“Listen to me carefully, Nick,” said Ajay. “Close your eyes and use your imagination. Picture every sort of terrifying beast that we’ve encountered so far. Both here and back home.”
“Okay,” said Nick.
“Now imagine creatures that are many times worse than that,” said Ajay. “Larger, more hideous, much more dangerous-looking. And there are thousands of them.”
Nick thought about it. “Well, that sucks.”
“Do you think they’ll spot us here?” asked Elise.
“Unlikely,” said Will. “They’re making a forced march of some kind. Trying to get somewhere fast.”
“Their focus will be on the road,” said Jericho, looking at Nick. “I don’t think they’ll notice us. Unless we do something stupid.”
“Would you stop looking at me when you say that?” said Nick.
“Why so many? What do you think they’re up to, Will?” asked Elise, rising up and grabbing the binoculars to take her own look.
“Dave told us they were preparing for an attack in here, remember?” said Will. “An invasion against our world. You heard him, too.”
“So he wasn’t lying or exaggerating,” said Elise.
“Franklin kept dropping knowledge that something big was in the works, too,” said Will. “But he also told me that it was nothing to worry about because the Knights were in complete control.”
“How’d he figure that?” asked Jericho.
“He said the Others could plan invasions of Earth from now until the end of time, but none of them would ever come to pass because they didn’t have the ability to create a way back into our world on their own.” Will took the Carver out of his backpack. “Unless they got their hands on this.”
They all stared at the device for a moment.
“So using the Carver to cut a hole in time/space back into our world from this side,” said Ajay slowly, “is the only way they can possibly get back across to Earth.”
“That’s what Franklin told me,” said Will.
Nick looked around and was the first to express what the others were feeling. “Dude, one question: Then why did we bring it in here with us?”
“We don’t know that Franklin was telling the truth or that he even knows the truth,” said Will. “What if the Makers have found a way to come across on the
ir own, or they’re on the verge of figuring it out?”
“If they’re smart enough to create all this…,” said Elise, looking around.
“Exactly, then they’re probably smart enough to do that. Franklin told me the original design for this came from them, so why couldn’t they build another one?”
“Dude, I’m not trying to be Debbie Downer,” said Nick, “but we still brought it in here.”
“The Carver is the only way to get here, and it’s the only way we’re going to get back,” said Will. “So what other choice did we have?”
“Uh,” said Nick, looking around at the others, “not coming?”
“But we need to free Dave,” said Will, feeling his own conviction start to wobble. “So he can let the Hierarchy know what’s going down and get their help…so they can stop the invasion.”
“That might not be able to take place,” said Ajay slowly, “unless they have the Carver.”
“So what’s stopping us from using it right now to cut our way back and get the frick out of this unholy mess?” asked Nick.
The question stunned him; Will looked around in dismay. Even Elise looked like her faith might be starting to waver.
“Hold up,” said Jericho. “Let me see that thing.”
Will handed him the Carver. He weighed it in his hand, feeling its heft. Thinking. They all waited.
“So your old granddad told you this is the only one of these that exists,” said Jericho. “Anywhere.”
“That’s right.”
“And this man is—let me see if I’ve got this right—a grandiose, homicidal lunatic who’s spent his whole life selling out everyone around him, and by that I mean not just his own family but also our entire species, in order to realize some fanatical plan of rewriting human destiny. On top of which he holds an unbreakable faith in his own delusional beliefs about…pretty near everything.”
“More or less,” said Will.
Jericho turned to the other three roommates and asked calmly, “Question for you: Who are we going to trust, our friend Will, or his messed-up messianic gran’pappy?”
Ashamed, everyone either pointed to Will or mumbled his name.
“I happen to agree with you,” said Jericho calmly. He handed the Carver back to Will and said, “You were saying.”
